Now that we have survived the Coachella 2017 festival, it’s time to set the sights on the southern midwest and that most famous of military surplus tent adventures… BONNAROO!! This year the Bonnaroo is going to be held on June 8th through the 11th at Manchester, TN. If you want to see what all of the hullaballoo is about, check out these 29 PHOTOS THAT WILL HAVE YOU BUYING TICKETS TO BONNAROO. This amazing photo lineup presents some of the favorite shots of last years Bonnaroo festival, as well as some golden oldies from years past. If you are a music lover, trend setter, aficionado, or just a very sociable person then you need to get your military surplus tent and cots ready, and prepare for the party of the year. The Bonnaroo is located in the heart of the southern hospitality belt in the foothills of Appalachia. This is the home of rocking chairs, walking horses, and Cracker Barrel™ restaurants. The Bonnaroo lineup this year includes :

$299.50-$349.50/4-Day General Admission Tickets All camping guidelines and information is available on the website, and believe me, this is the camping event of the year. There is just as much fun and adventure out of the venue as there is in it, it will be amazing if you are even able to sleep for the entire three days. New For 2017 Presale: Buy 4 General Admission tickets at once and get 1 Car Camping pass FREE! All ticket types will be available during pre-sale, Including GA, VIP, and the new Platinum Pass! Vehicle Passes, Le Bon Tents, and other convenient add-ons will be available too!

If you are like me then you have already gotten a jump on the camping season this year and have gotten out into the Spring mix to get a taste of the crisp cool air and the gentle sunshine without the benefit of the noseeums and mosquitos. The fact of the matter is, at least for me, that it’s the little things that make a camping trip miserable or great. One of the things that I despise most in life is being hunched over something for any length of time. The worst for me is when filleting a thousand or so panfish; but a close second is trying to use some old log or a flat rock as a work space when I am camping and preparing game or fixing a meal. And as a matter of fact it was during a recent fling into the wilderness while I was trying to prepare venison kabobs, corn on the cob, and an apple strudel for the wife and the kids that inspiration struck. (This inspiration did not strike me in the usual way, it struck me right across the top of my head… the bald spot, where the errant, early season fly had landed, which my wife had promptly smacked with a rolled up magazine). It turns out the magazine was an old copy of Popular Mechanics™, and there was an article about fold up tables in it. (YOU CAN READ IT HERE IF YOU LIKE! 🙂 ) Here are three really good reasons to take a folding table camping with you:

You don’t have to be hunched over. Most of these designs are made so that you can take full advantage of your homo-erectus status and stand erect while using them. What a treat for the back, huh?

You won’t have to juggle your items to keep them clean. As I mentioned earlier, a log in the woods or an old flat rock both have a common characteristic that is problematic, namely, they are both filthy as hell.

You won’t lose your knife. This might not be a problem for you, though I’d venture to guess it affects all sportsmen, but there is nothing I hate more than to be using my knife, lay it down for just a second, and then not be able to find it anywhere. With a handy dandy collapsable table in your midst, you shouldn’t have any problem at all finding it, it should be right there where you left it.

According to a recent articlein the Smithsonian magazine, wildfires have already ravaged over 2 million acres of land across America. As a matter of fact, Doyle Rice from USA Today claims that this is ten times the average and is a near record in wildfires of all time. Though these fires have mainly affected the plains states, (they are affecting Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas the worst), these are near drought conditions in some parts of the nation, and it is expected that this could be a very bad year for wildfires.
With this in mind, it is suggested that you take some specific precautions this year as you head out on your camping trips and your family oriented military surplus tent adventures. These precautions aren’t really anything new or sophisticated, they are more common sense that isn’t necessarily common knowledge.

Here are three precautions you can take to ensure that you don’t set the woods afire as you’re camping this year:

Take some buckets and fill them with water. It doesn’t take me to tell you that the easiest way to keep a fire at bay is with water does it? So it stands to reason that it will be a good precaution to have five or ten gallons of designated water for putting out your hot coals.

Don’t build a fire on a windy day. Again, common sense here. Anything you build a fire with is going to produce ash and hot coals. There is no real way to prevent these things from blowing around and in drought conditions that can quickly equal disaster. Though there are steps you can take to try to prevent this from happening, nothing is foolproof.

Dig a good firepit. By a good firepit, I mean one that is lined with rocks. It should be deep and lined completely with rocks and it is best to stay away from sedimentary rocks which have been in water because these can explode when exposed to the heat of a fire.

Egg hunting is not an activity that is inherent to humans or that is reserved strictly for religious holidays. From a survival sense, egg hunting goes on every single day and eggs are a much celebrated staple of many of God’s creatures. Survivalists often overlook this succulent bounty as a means of much needed nutrients and protein. And the fact of the matter is that chicken eggs have become a main part of the diet of most Americans, while many other types of eggs have gone by the wayside, often because of the richness of the yolk, the strong taste, or the quantity. The chicken egg, it seems, it just the right size and shape to satisfy the American palette. This should not dissuade you however, to give up on these succulent little morsels in a survival situation. The fact is that any kind of egg can be eaten in a survival situation, )except for rotten eggs), and you should not ever pass any up if you find them. Here are four very common egg types located pretty much throughout the country.

Goose eggs. Now remember, we are talking a survival situation here, so anything goes if you have to eat to live. Goose eggs are huge and they offer an excellent source of nutrition. The hardest part about obtaining goose eggs is in dealing with the goose who quite often isn’t very interested in sharing her resources.

Duck eggs. Very similar in size and richness to the goose egg. They are quite strong depending on the species and unless you are half a wild-man, you will probably not really enjoy the savor of a duck egg. I prefer them boiled to scrambled or over-easy, but will slurp them down raw if necessary. A word of caution here: Duck eggs are usually not just eaten raw and forgotten about. At least it has been my experience that a raw duck egg will try to come back up for a while, so you should resign yourself to enjoying a single duck egg for several hours before the proteins decide to remain.

Seagull eggs. These pesky creatures can literally be found anywhere there is water. I’ve seen them in southern Ohio! Their eggs are small so be prepared to gather a lot.

Turkey eggs. These are harder to find, but I’ve found them to taste better than any other kind of wild eggs. Almost “brothy” in their essence.

As was discussed earlier, if you are not a half a wild man and if you don’t have an iron stomach, then you probably don’t want to pour a hot, raw, wild egg down into your poor unsuspecting gullet. The truth is that if you are not used to it, then it isn’t going to stay in there most likely. And the worst part is that if it is a true survival situation then it has to go right back in there regardless… because the nutrients are too precious to part with. So, in this insert I am going to go over several different ways to get these morsels cooked and eaten in a way that is conducive with good digestion for most people. I discussed earlier how to cook fish in the bush, and cooking eggs in the bush isn’t too much different. So, with that in mind, here are three different ways to easily cook your eggs in the wilderness.

Fried. This is usually accomplished with the use of a flat rock that is placed, frying pan like, over or very near the fire. This is not a difficult concept, you simply heat a surface and place the eggs on it to cook to readiness. Remember that in a wilderness situation the presentation isn’t necessarily going to be pretty, but it is important that you get the protein in you anyway.

Cooked in ashes. This is my favorite method because it is the easiest. Basically you are roasting the egg in it’s shell. Remember that you don’t want to burn it up so you will generally cook it in hot ashes and place a vent hole in the shell. These roasted eggs are akin to boiled eggs and are quite tasty.

Boiled. The method that you will probably be most comfortable with, but which is actually the hardest to obtain in the wilderness. You need to either have a vessel that can withstand the heat of a fire to bring water to boil, or you need one that you can place hot rocks into to bring your water to a boil.

Now that the warm weather is officially here, it is time to get ready for hiking, camping, military tenting, fishing, frolicking, and family. I took a trip to one of the Goose Mountain type stores the other day and was astonished to learn that apart from a few read-headed stepchild brand of clothing items, if I wanted to buy anything from there I was going to have to take a mortgage out on the farm in order to do so. Apart from the ambiance of the place in the form of stuffed bears and moose heads adorning every wall, I wasn’t really impressed with the quality of the merchandise per se… for you see, I have always had this proclivity to hurt people and destroy things. Even before I decided to do such as a means of support for myself, I was able to destroy an anvil with a rubber mallet, (easily done if you set the mallet on fire and melt it over the anvil). So my point is that I am hard on equipment. I checked the soft thin fabric of one of the name brand tents that was on sale and could just picture what only a few floating embers from the fire would do to such a dainty means of shelter. I quickly went home and looked up my favorite military surplus site, and here is what I found to be a great deal right now.

Packs. Let’s face it, you can’t do any sort of camping, fishing, or foraying without a pack to carry your stuff in, (or out for that matter). And the good news is that RDDUSA has a great assortment of packs that have helped several different armies win wars over the years. These things are well built and easily cared for. They are also rugged.

Clothes. This isn’t the thin fashionable stuff that you will see presented sweetly on a svelt and thin limbed European mannikin at Macy’s, this is rugged wear at it’s finest.

Military surplus tents. These things will shake off the swirling embers of your bonfire like cattail down scattered in a summer’s breeze. definitely not the dainty fabrics that dreams are made of, this heavy canvas duck will withstand hurricane winds in some instances, and will make you stronger in the process.

If you’ve ever been on a dark camping trip then you know the misery of trying to stagger around in the night, tripping through the dew covered grass, trying to take care of natures business, fend off bears from the camp food stash, or stare precariously into the darkness in an attempt to discern a tree stump from a sasquatch. The good news is that Helio corporation has developed the perfect little camping light that is bright enough to light your entire camp up, but is small enough to take with you on any camping trip, military surplus adventure, or family outing. here are the product specifics straight from the manufacturer’s website:

“HELIO weights just 45g, even smaller and lighter than an egg. With this size and this weight, HELIO can be easily put into your backpack and you can hardly feel its weight. Due to our latest technology, the luminance of HELIO can reach 220 Lumens. It is almost the same as flashlight, and way more brighter than the normal lantern in the market. Helio dramatically improves all the features of traditional camping lanterns: a completely NEW type of lantern that can be plugged into a power bank. Due to the high quality of its LED, Helio is 30% more efficient than the normal lanterns. Moreover, it has a lifetime of 400 hours of uninterrupted light, when using a 10000mAh powerbank.”

Here are four good reasons to use a Helio lantern on your next camping trip, (though it is not yet in production).

It’s rechargeable. At just a few ounces, it doesn’t even take batteries, but is recharged via usb technology. Later I will present a blog on the device that you need to keep with you as a support device for electronics such as this… a fire fueled usb charging device. Perfect for living off of the grid.

It’s lightweight. This would be perfect for a backpacking endeavor or to take with you on the Appalachian Trail or some other long trek that is time consuming and remotely located.

It’s going to be inexpensive. The technology isn’t complicated, it’s just well thought out.

It’s LED. That means that the light could easily last for up to 400 hours. If used sparingly, this little monster could and will last you a very long time.

THE TENGU STOVE:

This bizarre device – ideal for campers – and named after a fantastical, legendary, Japanese devil dog – will allow you to boil water and cook while charging your device. It is called a Tengu, after the Japanese spirit which supposedly protects travelers.

It Resembles a small camping stove and has a tiny generator attached to it that transforms heat into electric power to reliably charge cell phones.

Inventor Aidar Khairullin, from Ufa, Russia is working on a new model that will allow customers to power up their laptops.

‘There is a fireproof wire attached to the metal body of a generator, made of titanium and stainless steel, that has a USB port,’ he said.

‘To charge your gadget, you need to plug it into the USB port.

‘Charging will take the same time as it would traditionally take thanks to 10W power output.

I can honestly only think of one good reason t have this technology available in the event of a total, grid failure, SHTF scenario; and that is relating to the last post that we discussed the Helio Lantern in. It would certainly be nice to be able to convert fire to battery power though, in the event that you are just involved in a normal survival situation, or even of you are in a military surplus adventure with the family. Here are two main reasons to have one of these in your kit:

It will give you light in your camp. As we discussed earlier, a new product is soon to hit the market which will revolutionize backpacking and camping. A powerful, reliable light source that is as small as an egg and which will easily be recharged by the Tengu.

You can use it to power your cellphone. I don’t know about you, but my iphone has taken the place of so many devices that I used to carry it isn’t even funny. I can’t imagine going on any sort of excursion without it, and this stove usb charger will keep me from having to carry extra battery packs from now on.